As a member of the Evangelization Committee for the Archdiocese of Chicago, from 2004 to 2007, I wrote some articles on what I consider to be "practical evangelization." I talk about simple things we can do in our everyday lives to evangelize - to help others along their path toward God. I received many e-mails and comments from readers about how easy the ideas were to implement and incorporate into their lives. Maybe these articles will give you some ideas too.

Some of the articles were reprinted in The Inside Passage, the Newspaper for the Diocese of Juneau, Alaska, and some have been reprinted in church bulletins. If you would like permission to reprint any of these in your church bulletin, send me an e-mail and I will confirm permission with the Catholic New World for you. MissFire2007@aol.comI suggest you read them in order since the first ones are addressed to beginning evangelizers and they progress into different topics. Maybe read one a week and give yourself time to think about the subject matter. Linda

Articles from THE CATHOLIC NEW WORLDthe Newspaper for the Archdiocese of Chicago

Bishop Michael Warfel, Bishop of Juneau Alaska (my cousin) and me.(He's 4 years older than me and much wiser.)(We both grew up in Elkhart, Indiana.)

Taken at the NAICE Conference in Portland, Oregon in 2003

NAICE = North American Institute on Catholic Evangelization

Photo taken by A. Windsor.

1st Century Stewardship for the 21st Century

Here are the links to materials used for the second part of this talk given at Leadership Day and for the June retreat at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Schaumburg, IL. Essentially, the Plan document gives a parish about a nine month plan designed to prepare a parish for an outreach program and then some thoughts on what you might do to retain those who come. There is the plan and the handouts.

(this and the Building Networks document were known as "the Long Handout.")

A pastor contacted me recently for the materials I used for the Home Visitation project that I wrote about in the Catholic New World a couple years ago. Just in case these are helpful to anyone, I'll post them here too along with the article.

This document is two pages - the first page was the outside of a tri-fold handout/brochure. The second page was the inside of that handout/brochure. We just printed this on regular paper in black and white.

This document is a sample of the letter I sent to my neighbors as a representative for my district before I visited them for the first time. I included the brochure in the letter. The second page of that document is just a flier we handed out in church.